Human Appeal International banned from Parrs Wood School

The Jewish-Muslim Interfaith monitoring group StandforPeace expressed satisfaction at a Department of Education decision to ban Human Appeal International from using the Manchester school Parrs Wood as a venue for fundraising.

Human Appeal International has been linked by the US government to the terrorist group Hamas. StandforPeace was the first to learn of the expected HAI event and provided local Jewish and human rights activists with research and expert opinion on the matter; as well as contacting the school directly.

In an email seen by StandforPeace, Preventing Violent Extremism (PVE) officers at the Department of Education concluded: “Since the concerns about HAI have come to light, Parrs Wood has performed further research including consulting local Jewish community representatives. As a result they have decided not to allow HAI or other charities which appear to have links to political organisations to use the school in future.”

Hasan Afzal, Director of StandforPeace, commented, “We are pleased to see the Department of Education take action over Human Appeal International. Schools are ripe targets for organisations such as HAI, and it is imperative that all educational institutions are vigilant about the company they keep.”

He continued, “Organisations such as Human Appeal have no business being on a school campus. Elsewhere, HAI have no shame in running events with the hate speaker Haitham al-Haddad, who openly preaches hatred against Jews, Christians and homosexuals. Such activity is only a web-search away. One would have thought the school would have practised better due diligence.”

Stand for Peace also noted that it intended to use this case as a precedent for stopping Human Appeal using other schools as fundraising venues in the future.

CONTACT

office@standforpeace.org.uk

NOTES

Human Appeal International is a British international development and relief charity based in Manchester. It was established in 1984. [1] According to the documents provided to the Charity Commission, the charity’s goals are:

“The relief of poverty and sickness and the protection of good health and the advancement of education of those in need or from impoverished countries overseas and in particular Sudan, Mauritania, Ethiopia, Lebanon and Afghanistan.”

HAI is a member of the Union of Good. HIY is also supported by the Palestinian Forum of Britain which has fund-raised for them. PFB is one of the organisations involved in the ‘Global March to Jerusalem’ on March 30th 2012, together other Muslim Brotherhood fronts.

A 1996 CIA report identified Human Appeal International as one of a number of Islamic charities used as conduits for funds to terrorist organizations, and tied it to the Saudi-based Muwafaq, an Al-Qaeda front group.[2]

In August 2002, Islamic youth chat group Muslim Net Melbourne featured an advertisement for a Hamas fundraising scheme, the “101 Days Campaign”. It said profits from the intifada videotapes would go to the campaign through Human Appeal International.[3]

The FBI in 2003 outlined a “close relationship between Human Appeal International and Hamas;” and the FBI further reported that HAI was a major recipient of funding from the convicted Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) Entity, the Holy Land Foundation.[4] In February 2005 Hamas’ website openly announced the receipt of funds from HAI, and in September of that year HAI was implicated in the investigation of British Hamas fundraiser Ahmad Saltana.

In December, Human Appeal International, working with student group FOSIS, ran an event with hate preachers Zahir Mahmood and Haitham al-Haddad at the East London Mosque.[5]

In a sermon entitled The Intifada and the Signs of Victory, and delivered at the al-Muntada al-Islami mosque in London, Haddad describes Jews as ‘eternal enemies’ and quotes from the anti-Semitic forgery, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion:

“[W]e must reflect on the reality of the conflict between us and the Jews, the enemies of God, and the descendants of apes and pigs. O brothers! The conflict between us and the Jews is religious, historic, civilizational, and infinitely complex; it is not bounded by time or place, and it has more than one dimension. Yes, o brothers, this is the nature of the conflict. It is not a military conflict for a limited period on the land of Palestine. The battle in Palestine, such as that underway at the moment and that which took place in the past, is but one small part of this conflict. There is no better example of this, o brothers, than our recognition based on an investigation of reality, that although the Jews do not occupy all our land in Palestine, in time they will take over parts of the Arab countries indirectly in a manner perhaps worse than the military occupation. For example: political and economic control, and all their efforts to gain cultural control, as well as their hard work towards normalisation [of relations]. This is only part of their management of this battle, of which realise its importance and our ignorance. We know that the Jews are using all that they can to end this conflict in their favour. They are doomed and will lose. They are one of the armies of the devil, of which Allah the Almighty said: And incite [to senselessness] whoever you can among them with your voice and assault them with your horses and foot soldiers and become a partner in their wealth and their children and promise them. But Satan does not promise them except delusion. [17:64] Did Allah not commands us to seek refuge from the devils of mankind and the jinn? Indeed, the devils of mankind are perfectly represented by these Jews. Do their Protocols [of the Elders of Zion] not say: “We must seduce the world with women and wine, through gambling and recreation, and if this is not sufficient then their reality will testify to this.” O brothers: their weapons in this battle are like the weapons of Satan: all kinds of desires, money, women, alcohol, games, media, so-called sports and art. All of these are amongst their weapons.”[6]

References

Extract from the Central Register of Charities maintained by the Charity Commission for England and Wales: Human Appeal International